Coastal Fisheries Programme

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Number 12 - February 2004
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Editor and Group Coordinator: Tom Graham, PO Box 235, Honolulu, HI 96809 USA. Phone/fax: +1 (808) 625 8755

Production: Information Section, Marine Resources Division, SPC, PO BOX D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia Fax (687) 263818)

Prepared with financial assistance from Australia, France and New Zealand.


From the Editor

As the previous issue of this bulletin went to press in April 2003, Hong Kong and other Asian cities were suffering from the widespread health and economic effects of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak. The live reef food fish industry felt it, too. Residents of Hong Kong and other market centres responded to the outbreak by curtailing their restaurant-going activity, causing the demand for live fish to plummet. This was quickly felt by fishermen and middlemen throughout the far-flung producer countries of Asia and the Pacific in the form of lower prices.

So we can add SARS to the list of events that have rocked the market for live reef food fish, along with the occasional consumer-scaring ciguatera poisoning incidents, the red tides that wiped out inventories of live fish in Hong Kong waters, and the economic crisis that hit Asia in 1997. Of course, this kind of volatility is not unexpected in markets for luxury products such as live groupers. It is something that fishermen have to cope with on a day-to-day basis and that policymakers in producer countries need to consider when pursuing the development of fisheries aimed for high-end export markets.

While it looks like the industry has largely recovered from this latest jolt, I understand that as the northern hemisphere winter approaches, public health officials in China are anxiously looking out for signs of another SARS outbreak.

In this issue Lida Pet-Soede et al. give us an update on Indonesia’s fisheries for live reef food fish, focusing on the effects of the SARS outbreak. They report that things have pretty much returned to normal with respect to SARS, but they identify at least one long-lasting effect of the outbreak.

I have not seen any detailed accounts of what other live reef food fish producing countries experienced in 2003 as a result of the SARS outbreak. But to give an idea of what transpired in other parts of the region, a few news items from the April-July 2003 period are reprinted in the "News and Events" section of this issue.

SARS is not the only topic covered in this issue. We have an article that examines the "marine ecological footprint" of the live reef food fish trade, a story about a new larvae collection device, a report on the natural spawning of groupers in floating cages, and updates on a variety of initiatives related to the trades in live food fish and aquarium organisms.

As part of our efforts to include news and articles about reef fish aggregations in this bulletin, accompanied with this issue is the newsletter of the Society for the Conservation of Reef Fish Aggregations (SCRFA). The newsletter is also available on the SCRFA website at http://www.scrfa.org. Please see the article in this issue by Yvonne Sadovy for further information about the organisation.

 Tom Graham

Correction

In the article by Being Yeeting on the Pacific Regional Live Reef Fish Trade Management Workshop in the previous issue of this bulletin (number 11), the "capture and culture of coral reef fish project" was incorrectly noted as being implemented by, among other entities, the Queensland Department of Primary Industries (page 40). In fact, the project was undertaken by the WorldFish Center (formerly ICLARM) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and it was funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

Contents

SARS and the live food fish trade in Indonesia: Some anecdotes
Pet-Soede L., Horuodono H., Sudarsono. (pdf: 77 KB)
Marine ecological footprint of the live reef fish food trade
Warren-Rhodes K., Sadovy Y., Cesar H. (pdf: 58 KB)
The "C.A.R.E." (collect by artificial reef eco-friendly) system as a method of producing farmed marine animals for the aquarium market: An alternative solution to collection in the wild
Lecaillon G. (pdf: 66 KB)
Natural spawning of three species of grouper in floating cages at a pilot broodstock facility at Komodo, Flores, Indonesia
Sudaryanto, Meyer T., Mous P.J. (pdf: 47 KB)
Toward MAC certification of Hawaiian Islands collectors: A project update
Kusumaatmadja R., Parks J., Atkinson S., Dierking J. (pdf: 48 KB)
Spawning aggregations need managing: An update on the work of the Society for the Conservation of Reef Fish Aggregations
Sadovy Y. (pdf: 27 KB)
Project update: Developing industry standards for the live reef food fish trade
Kusumaatmadja R., Muldoon G., Scott P. (pdf: 44 KB)

News and events (72ko)

Noteworthy publications ()

 


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Live Reef Fish #12 (pdf:)


 

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